The best videogame Western ever created

Rockstar is no stranger to exploring iconic time periods and
locations, having used the Grand Theft Auto series to explore the 80’s, 90’s
and modern day in recreations of Miami, New York and California, and having
helped Team Bondi on the creation of LA Noire, which explored late 1940’s Los
Angeles. The formula was always relatively the same, involving open world
shenanigans with cars and taking on missions from crime lords (with the
exception of LA Noire, where you were taking on a linear succession of missions
from your police superiors). Red Dead Redemption is their most ambitious open
world effort to date, taking on the American Wild West in 1911, during the
waning years of the frontier and casting you as an aging former rogue named
John Marston who is out to hunt down his former partners in crime at the behest
of The Bureau for the sake of his family. While it is called Red Dead:
Redemption, make no mistake; this is not a sequel to Red Dead Revolver and has
very little to do with that game aside from being published by Rockstar and
sharing the Wild West theme.

As a character, John Marston is a sympathetic figure and
quite different from the usual selfish criminals Rockstar usually puts the
player in charge of. He isn’t taking on missions for money, to build up a
criminal empire or support himself through crime, but he’s quite literally
being forced by the government to help them so he can have his family and
livelihood back. This brings some comparisons to GTA IV’s Niko Bellic, who
wanted a normal life and used crime to support himself and his cousin, but
unlike Niko, John never actually has to commit any crimes in the game, and
players could go the entire game without angering a single authority figure if
they wanted to (barring a single tutorial mission teaching the players how the
old west “Wanted” system works in the game). That’s not to say that players
won’t be taking part in some shady business and gunfights ever now and then,
but the lawless west is a different place from the more civilized and
controlled confines of Liberty City.

In classic Grand Theft Auto style, players will accept
missions from bosses for a variety of tasks, ranging from killing people to
chasing people to fetching an important item, with a bevy of side missions and
open world activities in between to keep players busy. Players can amuse
themselves with some horseshoes or poker, have a few drinks at the saloon, get
into a duel with a challenger or even take part in various random events where
John can do things like partake in a hunting challenge with a stranger or save
a prostitute from being stabbed (or just ignore the situation, or even help out
her assaulter). Players can’t actually do any business with these prostitutes
though, since John is a married man and will remind the women of this, though
part of this might be because players can’t really use their horses in the same
way one might use a car to ferry a prostitute in Grand Theft Auto, especially
since John still has the freedom and characterization of a former criminal out
in lawless lands.

The game has an “honor” system as well as a reputation
system that takes note of your actions in the game, and allows different
interactions in some different areas. It’s not as deep as it might sound and
doesn’t allow the wildly differing exchanges you might get in a title like
Fallout, though it does affect prices and NPC interactions for a little more
life. It feels oddly constraining and a bit tacked on when it’s so rarely used
and when the story doesn’t change at all with Marston’s actions, but as an
entirely optional in game feature that doesn’t affect anything you do or how
you do it too much, it’s hard to complain. It does show off just how wasted the
Wanted system is in the main game when that too is a more optional feature (as
mentioned) and players almost never have to deal with fighting off the army or
committing any crimes unless they feel like killing some time just screwing
around. It makes the game seem less cohesive as a whole, but again, it’s hard
to complain about having more optional things to do and ways to experience the
game.

Redemption's story is rigidly defined, with some minor
subplots now and then (including one rather over long segment in Mexico
involving a revolution), but it is well written and does a great job of showing
Marston’s dedication to his family over the allures of money and returning to
crime. John Marston is one of the best characters ever realized in a videogame,
and his interactions with others do a great job of defining him and his
personality, as well as his upbringing and what led him to his current
situation. Other supporting characters are also expertly voiced and written,
and come off as much more realistic and believable then the caricatured
characters in previous Rockstar titles, though there are still a few oddball
characters to lighten up the grim situations John finds himself in (such as an
inept revolutionary leader and a drunken Irish arms dealer named Irish). The
world as a whole is just much more serious in tone then any Grand Theft Auto
title, barring some humorous newspaper ads and short silent films that are
almost a requirement in any open world Rockstar title at this point.

The gameplay and gameplay mechanics are incredibly refined,
more so than any previous open world Rockstar title, with the gunplay and
combat feeling tense and quick thanks to clever AI and responsive controls, as
well as the incredibly fun to use Dead Eye system that allows players to slow
down time and mark enemies to gun down rapidly in classic Wild West fashion. Of
course shooting things is about 70% of what you will be doing when fisticuffs
are so rarely relied on and horses merely provide another platform for shooting
people, but the different enemies, missions types, settings and the progression
in weaponry and story do a great job of alleviating repetition, while the well
done shooting mechanics make the game much more suitable for online play. The
game is a bit buggy at times with clipping and times when I ended up paying
significantly more then I was asked to pay for a stagecoach ride, but given the
size of the world it’s astounding it’s as polished as it is, and for what it’s
worth the game puts the engine to great use with some beautiful graphics on
display and some lifelike animations on display.

Multiplayer is one of the most surprisingly fun offerings,
with an extensive amount of differing modes, expansions, ranks, and the ability
to just screw around in the world with friends and take on any variety of
challenges you like. Players can activate the many modes right in free roam
with their friends, and set up fearsome posse to terrorize other players and
NPC’s. Without these activities or the extra content the DLC offers, the open
world online is rather bland and save for the shrubbery and NPC’s, may as well
be mars since the basic online free roam lacks side activities, random events
and even trains and the ability to rob people that added so much life to the
single player. The various modes include basic deathmatches as well as a
Capture the Flag variant revolving around gold bags, and a bevy of co-op
activities that can be activated right in free roam, plus some really well done
story based co-op modes offered through a free DLC pack that allows up to 4
players to partake in some caper or task with their friends for a sizeable
amount of experience.

Overall, Red Dead: Redemption is another fantastic open
world title from Rockstar, easily the best Western videogame created thus far,
and a game that you should not miss if you have the time needed to invest in
such a large game with so much to do. Amazing writing and music, mechanically
refined gameplay, and Rockstar’s best use of online multiplayer yet, this is a
game that is destined to be a classic.